tbradshaw.net

Strangely enough, it appears that I’m going to be switching back to GNOME from Xfce due to performance. For whatever reason, screen redraw time after changing virtual desktops in Xfce was noticeably slow.

Thankfully I have coworkers with identical workstation hardware, who quickly demonstrated that it wasn’t my hardware that was lacking. A quick trial of GNOME showed an enormous increase in perceived render time during virtual desktop switches.

So much for Xfce being GNOME-lite, eh?

Slashdot delivered amazing news like none other today when they linked to a recently announced…

Wow, I can’t tell you how excited I am to hear about this.  There is an interview over at IGN with John Tam that is definitely worth a read, but here are the highlights that make Guitar Hero II the hottest game ever for me:

• Uses the same guitar(s)
• 55+ new songs
• 40 new songs from big labels.  (With bigger bands now that Guitar Hero is huge.)
• Co-operative multiplayer where there are two (one for each player) tracks for each song. Players select which instrument they want to play, either paired as Lead and Rhythm or Lead and Bass.
• Practice mode.  Even loop a part of a song to practice just that part.
• New characters, venues, guitars.

This is just going to be too awesome!

I stumbled onto this page indirectly via digg and couldn’t help but admire the design work. The Pee Pee Project was simply defined: design a better place to pee in public. Well, not necessarily public (though some of the designs are for just that!), but at least in public facilities.

One definitely has to at least respect the pee tree.

Keeping on a trend of WoW related posts, I’ve found indisputable evidence on the forums of why there are more Alliance characters than Horde characters.

Just in case the forums are a bit of a pain, here’s a direct quote of “Bluegoth” a Level 9 Tauren Warrior on the Destromath realm as she talks about her Night Elf character:

And the money started rolling in. I have another tauren, an orc and a troll, all female, and I have never ran into anything like what is happening. I took off my clothes and started dancing with the cooking supplies vendor in the low level area just to be silly. Lo and behold, a gnome ran up to me and asked me if I was new to the game (hmm a naked level 6 character dancing with an npc…). I said yes and he gave me 4 silk bags and 10 gold. I put my armor back on and he helped me destroy all of my quest critters. I thanked him and gave him a /hug. He still sends me tells asking how I’m doing ( a week later).

I started fishing as I wanted to eventually catch oily blackmouth. I ran to Darnassus to build up my skills. A Dwarf ran up to me (I was wearing my “lucky” outfit). He asked me if I needed any help. I decided to be nice and said, “No thank you. I am trying to raise my fishing, but they are being difficult.” He gave me the upgraded pole, some lures and 1 gold. I /hugged him, /smiled at him, said “thank you” and he left sending me a tell later asking me to let him know if I needed help.

I head over to the fireworks quest person and purchased some fireworks. I launch them and /clap after each one launches. A Night Elf rogue comes up to me and asks if I need help. I asked him if he knew why my quest wasn’t being filled by launching the fireworks from the launchers. He tells me that it currently only works in IF and volunteers to take me there. I tell him that it will be too much of a bother to him and I’d be just as happy blowing up the fireworks here. he gives me a gold for fireworks, blows me a /kiss and takes off. I, of course, spend the gold blowing up fireworks.

Finally, yesterday, I was grousing out loud to other lowbies that my gear is sad and that the enemies all laugh when they see me coming. A Human paladin comes up to me and says, “What’s wrong Hun?” I say, “Nothing really. I was just complaining that my gear is terrible and my weapons are better suited for ren faire performers.” He says to wait. 5 minutes later, he returns with AH goodies. I happily thank him, and as he leaves, he emotes /spanks your behind to keep you out of mischief.

To this day, I still get tells for cyber, guys calling me “hun” and “sweetie” and guys asking me if I would like them to help me on my quests (almost all are 60). I never got anything like this from my horde characters. Hell, my trollie looks damn sexy and she never got such treatment! How do you guys know I am not a man playing as a female Night Elf? I appreciate the gifts (but not the cyber requests), but really. Come on. Do any of you other players get this sort of treatment when you play as female Alliance characters? I am almost afraid to start a gnome female character as I would be horrified to see what that would attract.

Not only is it amazing that she made money from having a “sexy” computer character, it’s amazing the behaviors and attitudes of the characters on the server who treat the attractive Night Elf female character model as if it’s a realistic depiction of the player.

I don’t think it takes much understanding to realize that it isn’t a “real” Night Elf bombshell, it’s just a character model crafted out of polygons by a Blizzard employee. Importantly, that character model has no reflection on the player, the suitability of the character for combat, or the knowledge-ability of the player/character in the game world. Even with those finely crafted “curves” and scantly clad armor sets… the stats that drive events in the world are identical to male characters.

I can’t help but think that the reason that it does matter has a lot to do with the pathetic nature of decent of the WoW players.

This is just too amazing to pass up. A report on the “next” World of Warcraft instance has made the sports section of the New York Times. That’s right, the sports section of the New York Times.

Damn.

Caution: This blog post is a draft and mostly devoid of proof reading.

Part of my relaunch into frequent blogging is the realization that I’m just going to blog about World of Warcraft when the wild urge hits me.

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about the common “complaints” about the end-game in WoW (or really any MMO). The idea that the game devolves into a one dimensional “raiding” game after the top level is reached.

I think that these complaints really hedge on a faulty perspective. I think that the faulty perspective hinges on a misinterpretation of the MMO concept that “the game never ends”. One of the major differences in MMO’s compared to most games is that there is no ultimate victory over the challenges that are faced and the game is never “beaten”. To some, that is equated with a never ending game experience that directly parallels existing gaming experiences. That is to say they would expect “the game that never ends”, if it were say a Super Mario Game, to have infinite worlds all equally crafted to the beginning worlds.

But in reality that’s just not what’s going on. The game never ends because the game has a “persistent world”. This does not equate to an infinite set of single player experience. Instead it is the equivalent of completing a single player game and instead of being shown the end-game cinematic and informed it’s “The End”, you can complete the single player game and then you are left to your own devices to reign in whatever manner interests you. Like how you can continue playing the levels in Donkey Kong Country 3 after you have “beaten” the last boss. No additional progression, but still fun.

It just so happens that the early portions of an MMO often parallel the game style of a single player RPG. If you view World of Warcraft the same way that you would view Final Fantasy VII, then indeed after finishing some of the game at level 60 (the highest currently attainable level) the game experience is “complete”. However, instead of receiving an end-game cinematic you are given a sandbox to play in.

That sandbox happens to have some seriously bad ass content in it. It comes in the form of “raid” content with giant dungeons and dragons to slay that take huge numbers of amazing players to conquer. There are also great rewards for participating in the sandbox.

So does the game change after reaching level 60? Yes, most certainly. After spending some time at level 60 you have “beaten the game” in a classic gaming sense. After becoming one of the most powerful characters in existence and beaten the most powerful enemies that are possible to beat with only one to five characters, there just isn’t anything more amazing that a character to do. If it were a “real” fantasy world it would be time to retire. However, recognizing that some people want to continue, the logical next step is to have content that takes even more level 60 characters to conquer, leading to the current raid content.

However, the nice thing about the amazing amount of content that is currently in the game, one can always play the game through again with a new character type, identity, culture, storyline, and more. This can be repeated dozens and dozens of time before all of the game content is “experienced”.

I guess I just don’t see where the complaints from WoW gamers regarding the end game content format come from. If a person came into a game expected an infinitely long set of “single player”-esque (or even small group) questing, then they came into the game with unrealistic expectations. No one can create an infinite set of content, it’s just completely impossible. For those that complain that they can not be as “powerful” as players that enjoy raid content (for whatever reason)… well… yeah, it’s true. One must accomplish greater feats to achieve greater rewards, and there is just a finite logical limit to what one, five, or ten people can accomplish when there is a level cap.

Personally, I hope that sometime in my gaming experience I have the pleasure of joining a guild that will allow me to participate in that amazing raid content in the sandbox at the end of WoW. But until that comes to pass, I think I’m going to try an undead rogue next.

I was reading blogs this morning and noticed that Katie Hillen had taken a “Beer Quiz” from over at Quizilla. Usually I find those quizes a little dumb, but this one looked a little too fun to turn down, so I dove in. Low and behold, Katie and I are the same beer:

BUD LIGHT: You’re laid back and low maintenance - a people-person, who wants everyone else to be having as much fun as you are. You make friends and jokes easily, and though you’re definitely a smart ass, you’re good-natured. Every man’s beer for everyone’s friend.

The Greatest Beer Quiz, ever! brought to you by Quizilla

Our campus newspaper has a cool feature called the “Campus Fourum”. This is a number with an answering machine that people can call and just leave a message saying whatever they want. Sometimes there is some witty banter back and forth, sometimes it’s just a bunch of crap.

But as Tyson Moore pointed out to me today, sometimes it’s just absolutely brilliant:

My Republican roommate thought that my “I love the Constitution” button was anti-Bush. Isn’t that ironic?

Ahahahahahaahaha!

This might be the longest that I’ve went without blogging since I started this site. It’s been another one of those “lots to blog but not enough time” where I end up just not blogging at all. I’m going to conquer that part of my OC personality, honest.

Anyway, just to get into the swing of things, I did one of those goofy online quizes. Only I saw this one on Dr. Hsu’s blog and after taking it I like it.

You are a Social Liberal (76% permissive) and an… Economic Conservative (86% permissive) You are best described as a: Libertarian Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid